Monday, February 27, 2012

GONE (2012)

Would you begin to question your own sense of reality when everyone around you is telling you that you are delusional? Young Jill Parrish (Amanda Seyfried) never wavers from her belief in her own truth--but the questions remain, and become intensified for the audience in the new thriller, Gone, from Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia.

Jill has a history. A history of mental illness. Or so it is has been declared. A year ago she told a story of being kidnapped by a really bad dude who kept her imprisoned in a well and tried to kill her. She escaped. But her story didn't check out with the police. They could find no trace of the man, and no trace of the big hole in the ground where she claimed he kept her. Another blow to her credibility is that she spent some time in a mental institution after her ordeal.

When her sister, Molly, (Emily Wickersham) turns up missing from the home they share together, she fears that the man is back--intending to take her again, but settling for the sister when Jill wasn't home. She reports the disappearance to the cops, but due to her history, they flat out don't believe her. I found this element of Gone hard to swallow, because no matter what, the authorities are supposed to routinely follow up on missing persons reports. These cops come off as totally cavalier boobs. But, as is often the case with the psychological thriller genre, SOMEBODY has to be or do something really stupid to make the plot work.

Jill is thrust into the role of being the lone crusader trying to find and save Molly before it's too late. When the police learn she has a gun, they feel she may be a danger to herself and others, and so the "manhunt" for her is on. It then becomes a race against time--and this is where the dramatic tension is created--as Jill tries to find a potential killer before the cops nab her and put her out of commission.

Gone is a decent thriller--nothing that's going to tax your brain all that much--we know we will learn in the end whether Jill is connected to reality or a real nut job. And whether sis--who has a drinking problem--has maybe just gone off on an alcoholic bender and will stagger home later with a slurred WHASSUP, SUCKAHS? There ARE enough red herrings floating around in the soup of this movie to keep us guessing and second guessing as to who the real bad guy is-assuming he exists.

Amanda Seyfried herself may be the biggest draw for guys--she's at least a 9 on the beauty scale--with (not Betty Davis) Zooey Deschanel eyes, big as saucers. She turns in a believable performance as the girl nobody believes. (Tell me what I say!)

Nobody else worth mentioning here, but doggone if Gone doesn't deliver a satisfying "touche" type of ending that may put a smile on your face as you walk out of the theater.

Also from Tim Schaefer...

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When I was a little kid my family would take me to the movies, but I don't remember ever arriving on time to see the beginning of the film. That was okay because, in those days, theatres would let you pay your admission and watch the picture more than once, if you so desired. (These were single screen theatres, so you didn't have people viewing one film and then trying to sneak into another--a not uncommon occurrence at today's multiplexes.) The theatre was a convenient place for vagrants to snooze the day away. (Now it's the public library!)

We'd watch the movie from whatever point it had progressed to when we arrived, then catch the first fifteen minutes or so during the next showing, finally grasping--in a somewhat anti-climactic way--what we hadn't understood about the characters and the plot because we'd missed certain critical information at the beginning.

And that's how the phrase "THIS IS WHERE WE CAME IN" was born.

It seemed lots of people were accustomed to viewing films in this casual manner because, after all, it was only "entertainment." But somewhere along the way, the theatre owners realized they could put more butts in the seats (and thus reap more profits) by booting everyone out after each showing and making them pay twice if they wanted to see the flick again. The unintended consequence of the policy was that it generated a newfound respect for the medium of film, if only from the standpoint that everyone started showing up on time to see the production in its entirety.

We've come a long way from those Doris Day movies of the fifties where the film censors dictated that if a man and woman were reclining upon a bed, they'd have to have at least one foot touching the floor! Today, every issue and situation that affects our lives is portrayed frankly--and graphically--in film. And that makes the medium more relevant to our lives than ever before. With that in mind, come take a look at what's inside Timmy's Noodle.

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Lenny Bruce died for our speech

TIMOTEO ON ACTING: We cannot pretend in our minds to NOT be doing something we are ACTUALLY doing, and then dismiss it as just "acting." Acting is living out one's fantasies without having to take responsibility for it.

BARF!

Because we want you to have a HEALTHY movie going experience, Timmy's Noodle will not knowingly review films that have a promotional tie-in (little action figures to lure kids into the burger joint, etc.) with a fast food restaurant chain!